July 31, 2023 – Bank of America joined up with WPDI back in September 2022 to support our peacebuilding and vocational training program in the Karamoja Sub-Region of Uganda. The region is one of the most underprivileged and underdeveloped areas of the country, and is still reeling from the after-effects of a decade-long civil war. Local tribes are often in conflict, and can lack the basic social infrastructures required for mediation and resolution. On top of that, economic instability and a lack of opportunities for sustainable income-generation means many youths face severe challenges to their potential growth and development.
From January to June 2023, WPDI, thanks to the support from the Bank of America, reached and graduated 524 women and youths in the vocational skills courses delivered by Youth Peacemakers both in the field and at our Community Learning Center. In this period, 174 women and youths were trained and graduated in our Business and Entrepreneurship course across the eight sub-counties of North Karamoja (North Division and Nakapelimoru in Kotido district, Nyakwae and Abim in Abim district, Lodiko and Kakamar in Kaabong district, and Lobalangit and Sangar in Karenga district), 97 graduated at our Community Learning Center, 153 graduated in ICT, and 100 graduated in Arts & Crafts, including tailoring and garment cutting.
The mobilization of interested individuals was led by WPDI’s network of Youth Peacemakers and this attracted many women and youth eager to register for the course. Training adverts were pinned in strategic locations around target villages in each sub-county.
The training sessions employed a cross-section of approaches including group discussions, brainstorming, use of local and life exemples, role plays and recaps aimed at helping trainees memorize and remember information already taken in the previous sessions. Importantly, these training sessions were delivered in the local language by our Youth Peacemakers.
The program is particularly adapted to people who never had the chance to go to school, and who have a low level of literacy. Ilukol Paska, a woman from the Nariwobwal village in Kaabong district, told us: “I heard about this program through a friend who came across the advert pinned in the community for business skills training run by WPDI peacemakers. Being an illiterate, vulnerable female, this posed a great opportunity for me to learn how one can start and sustain a business to earn a living. Before I enrolled for the business skills training rollout, I didn’t know the importance of record keeping which was the cause for constant failure in my past businesses. Currently, record keeping has helped me to remember debts and debtors hence it has helped me to minimize losses due to forgetting my credits given out to my customers.”
The program has been very popular, with the opportunity to learn vocational skills leading to income generation proving particularly attractive for young women who have never had access to such opportunities. Agwalo Brenda, 27 years old female, North Division, Moroto District, said “I heard about the program on the radio when the organization was advertising the courses. So I got interested in applying for tailoring & garment cutting. I didn’t go further with school, I dropped out from senior four because of lack of school fees to keep me at school. My objective was to learn tailoring & garment cutting so I could open my own fashion shop. I am glad to have joined the Whitaker Peace & Development Initiative course.”
Eventually, we were able to hold 12 Business Plan Competitions with, 44 groups of youths and women participating. 20 groups subsequently emerged as winners, including 14 composed of vulnerable women and 6 youth groups. All these groups have been able to kickstart their small businesses thanks to funds provided by WPDI and Bank of America, and will benefit from continued monitoring and backstopping to make sure their businesses succeed.
This business incubation process is chaired by the review committee that is composed of District Community Development Officer (DCDO), District Commercial Officer (DCO), District Youth Chairperson at the district level and Community Development Officer (CDO), Senior Assistant Secretaries (SAS), Sub County Chairperson/LCIIIs and a staff of WPDI. These teams review, assess and scrutinize all business plans submitted and presented by different groups.
For the rest of the year, Bank of America will continue to support our vocational training program as we look to consolidate our success of the first half of the year, making sure winning business projects are adequately supported and monitored, in order to assure the sustainability of their projects.
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